The Merits of Mid-Range Weaponry
by Welcome to my House of Mirrors
Summary: This is just Peter's sort of luck: getting speared straight through but somehow remaining mostly whole. It's the kind of irony that he would find amusing if it didn't apply so often to him. Team dynamics (kind of). Mostly just Peter whump. Rated for language and graphic description of injury.


**Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Also, the medical information in this is completely made-up: don't sue me.**

 **Okay, so this is my first Avengers fic _and_ my first Spiderman fic. Yay. Sorry for any misinformation about characters or anything; if there are any glaring errors, please tell me. Sorry that some parts are kind of rushed and that the ending sucks.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

Peter Parker loves his life.

He lets out a whoop of joy as he swings himself across Manhattan, adrenaline coursing through his body and tingling in his fingers and toes. There are giant, ugly green monsters soaring clumsily through the air behind him; they reek so bad he can smell them thirty feet away and their skin is slimy with a mucus-like substance that makes them difficult (but definitely not impossible) to web, and if they get hold of him they'll pummel him into next month.

He absolutely fucking _loves_ it.

" _Spiderman, status!_ "

"All good up here, Cap!" he replies giddily into the comm, turning a web-shooter on one of the snot-monsters and effectively bringing it down. "There are a few more ready to be disposed of along Park Avenue."

" _Duly noted, Spidey._ " That's Tony—Peter sees a flash of red and gold as Iron Man shoots himself across the air below him, firing his repulsors and making neat work of the monsters littering the street.

Manhattan really is a mess, Peter thinks to himself as he perches on a light post for a second to catch his breath. There's always _something_ running amuck here these days. He surveys the city and is pleased to find that only one building so far has collapsed under the onslaught of alien intruders; the Avengers, himself included, are doing their best to keep it that way. Thank god for the new Citizen Safety codes that had recently been put into effect: everyone had been evacuated at the first sign of hostile activity, making the job of getting rid of the fuglies infinitely easier.

The monsters of the day are big, lumbering, and stupid, but there are a lot of them. Enough that Bruce had to be called in for backup. And they're strong, too: strong enough that trying to get in close enough for hand-to-hand, Peter's preferred (and basically only) method of combat, would be a monumentally stupid idea. In situations like this Peter's safest bet is to try to stay out of everyone's way and tie up as many fuckers as he can to await eradication by some other member of the team.

He's attempted to get someone to teach him how to handle some sort of weapon. He keeps trying to tell them that he would be so much more _useful_ if he was able to shoot a bow or throw some knives or something, but the answer is always the same— _No, Peter, you're too young. If the situation is bad enough that you need the aid of a weapon, you call one of us to come help you, you understand?_ This, of course, is the stupidest thing he's ever heard. What if everyone's too busy to help him? Or his comm is broken? And besides, he's not _too young_. He's nineteen years old: a _legal adult._ He'd been acting alone for almost a year before he'd been recruited into the Avengers.

He shakes his head. No need to get worked up over it now.

He does another quick visual sweep of the city to get an idea of where he would be the most—and the least—helpful. For the most part it looks like everyone is handling things okay on their own; he just hopes this is the last wave of monsters that they have to defeat this week.

It's an overcast day. There's the promise of a storm in the air and with Peter's heightened senses everything feels slightly electric. The clouds are still light now: Peter doesn't think that it will actually start raining for another day or two. Even so, the electricity in the air makes the adrenaline sing through his veins and he finds it impossible to stay on the light post for more than a minute.

Deciding that it's in his best interest to stay out of the way for now but too restless to remain idle, Peter takes off toward the collapsed building to see if there's anything interesting in the rubble. Someone will have to look through it either way; he might as well give them a head-start. If the team needs him, they'll tell him.

He's almost there when something large and heavy plows into him, sending him spiralling into the empty park area in front of the wreckage with a grunt. It isn't until he lands face-first in the grass that he's hit with the tell-tale sewer smell of the monster, delayed by a passing breeze. The impact is enough to send him tumbling head-over-heels along the ground for a good few feet; he feels both of his web-shooters come loose and break away from his suit.

" _Spiderman, status!_ "

Peter finally slows to a halt and pushes himself upright, frantically scanning for both the snot-monster and his web-shooters.

"Everything's fine, Cap, just a minor setback to my original plan of action," he replies somewhat distractedly. He hopes Steve doesn't notice.

The snot-monster is zigzagging through the air toward him, gaining on him surprisingly quickly for how slow it moves on the ground. Peter finally locates the web-shooters in the grass and scrambles for them as the monster lands clumsily and begins to stumble toward him. He only needs one, just one, but the snot monster is almost on him and his hands are shaking and _jesus_ , did he have to make this so fucking hard to get on the suit?

 _Why, why, why do they have to be able to fly,_ he thinks desperately, fumbling with the tiny device.

"Come on, come on," he mutters out loud, heart pounding in his ears, the smell of raw sewage making his eyes water as the creature bumbles closer to him. "Aha!"

He finishes adjusting the web-shooter so that he can actually handle it and manages to get the sticky white string wrapped around the snot-monster, but not before the thing gets in a good hard shove to his chest that sends him flying backwards through the air. There's a sharp pain in the right side of his back, and then something is slicing into him and _sliding through him_ —

His vision fizzles into white nothingness and his ears ring hollowly as a sudden impact against shoulders violently halts his momentum, punching the air from his lungs. It feels like years until he regains his senses, but it can only be a few minutes because when he finally comes back to himself he can hear Steve barking his name into the comm.

" _Spiderman, report! Are you injured! Spiderman! Peter! Peter,_ report!"

"Gimme a minute to get my bearings, Cap," he gasps against the pain. He needs to assess his injuries first; no need to panic people by telling them he's just been shish-kebabed until he knows the extent of the damage.

He's still breathing, obviously. That's something. He takes a few shallow, experimental breaths; there's pain, of course, a little bit of pressure, but nothing that would indicate his lungs being punctured or filling with fluid.

 _Good_ , Peter thinks, a bit hysterically, _that's good_.

Moving on, he feels his heart hammering in his chest. It's fast, too fast, but other than that the rhythm seems regular—it's not doing that weird scary _thump thuh-thump thump-thump...thump thuh-thump_ thing it did that one time when he was electrocuted.

He moves the fingers of first one hand and then the other before wiggling his toes, making sure that his spinal cord is still intact even though he doesn't feel paralysed anywhere. Everything responds normally.

So far so good. He doesn't feel like he's about to vomit or start pissing blood, so he takes that to mean that his stomach and kidneys are still intact. Wishing he had paid better attention in anatomy class, he tries to think of any other organs that could have been damaged.

Honestly, he's pretty sure that the only reason he's still conscious right now is the adrenaline that's continuing to pump through him, hard and fast. It still _hurts_ —but right now, it's not so bad that he can't think. He feels like this should concern him, seeing as he's just been run through; however, he's 96.4% positive that nothing vital is damaged. Which, really, is nothing short of a miracle.

Assessment over. Conclusion: he is one lucky son of a bitch.

Peter's so relieved that he actually laughs out loud. It's breathy and vaguely strangled, and it immediately gets Steve's attention.

" _Spiderman, report!_ "

"I'm good, Cap," he replies, trying to sound as normal as possible. It's mostly a blatant lie, but he figures that they have better things to do right now than rescue him. "I'm a little banged up, though. I think you guys are gonna have to round up the rest of the fuglies without me."

" _All right, Spiderman. Just give us your location in case we need to get to you._ "

"I'm in the grassy park area in front of the building that collapsed."

" _Take a break, kid,_ " Sam says into the comm. " _Keep yourself safe_."

"Thanks, will do," he says, then closes his mouth and focuses on taking steady, even breaths through his nose. It hurts, god it hurts so much, the pain growing now that there's not so much to distract him.

This is just his sort of luck: getting speared straight through but somehow remaining mostly whole. It's the kind of irony that he would find amusing if it didn't apply so often to him. He reaches up to pull his mask off, feeling too hot.

A gentle breeze caresses the bare skin of his cheeks, bringing with it the rotten stink of the snot-monsters. But it's stronger than it should be; he's at least forty yards from the one that had attacked him. His eyes snap open (when had they closed?) to see another creature not thirty feet away.

"What the hell?" he mutters. How had it gotten so close so fast without him noticing?

It's moving faster than the other had. Peter curses and brings up his web-shooter.

A strangled sound tears itself from his throat before he can stop it. The recoil from the shooter had jerked him to one side; blood pulses down his front before slowing again and it hurts so bad black spots play around the edges of his vision.

" _Spiderman!_ " Steve snaps into the comm. " _Status!_ Are you injured?"

"Yeah, no, good—great, I'm great, everything is great here," he gasps, "I'm perfectly fine, really, everything's under control, there's nothing wrong. I'm— _oh, fuck_ —"

Peter rips the comm from his ear before they can hear his moan of pain. He clenches his fist involuntarily as a fresh wave of pain hits and feels the plastic crack in his grip.

He tilts his head back against the solid structure behind him, panting shallowly. He suddenly wishes again that he had a better weapon to defend himself with; he thinks that maybe throwing knives wouldn't jerk him around so much.

Things get kind of hazy, then. Peter regrets not telling the others about the situation before he accidentally destroyed his comm. He's cold and frightened and he just wants to go home.

 _Someone please find me._

* * *

Clint Barton loves his life.

The green space-monsters are quickly dwindling in number and he's starting to get that post-battle high that makes him feel light as air. No matter what kind of mood he's in beforehand, fighting evil inhuman things that want to kill him never fails to put a grin on his face.

But today the feeling is somewhat dampened by worry. No one has seen Peter for over an hour and he's been acting weird over the comm, making these cryptic remarks that almost make it sound like he's in trouble and then brushing it off like it's nothing.

Speaking of...

" _What the hell?_ " Peter mutters. It's distracted enough that Clint doubts he's talking to anyone but himself. There's a pause and then a sharp, pained cry that has Steve barking worriedly, " _Spiderman! Status!_ Are you injured?"

" _Yeah, no, good—great, I'm great, everything is great here, I'm perfectly fine..._ "

He's rambling, Clint realises with a jolt of concern, letting loose an arrow that lodges itself in the nearest monster's eye. Peter only rambles when something is wrong and he's trying to hide it from them.

" _...everything's under control, there's nothing wrong. I'm—_ oh, fuck—"

Peter's babbling cuts off with a sharp gasp, and there's a beat of silence before a loud burst of static has Clint jumping about a foot into the air; below, he sees the visible members of the team flinch violently. He takes out both the comm and his hearing aid and presses a finger to his ear, dimming the faint ringing even further before replacing the devices. It's silent again for a minute before Steve starts shouting, " _Peter! Peter!_ " into his comm.

There's no reply.

" _Damn,_ " Steve curses. " _Iron Man, can you—?_ "

" _Really wish I could, Cap,_ " Tony grunts, regret and frustration colouring his tone, " _but I'm a little busy here_."

Steve curses again. Everyone else is engaged, the Captain included. He whips his shield through the air, severing the heads of three monsters directly in its path.

"I got it, Cap," Clint assures, securing his bow. "Where did he say he was?"

" _In the grassy area near the collapsed building on Park Avenue,_ " Steve replies.

Good; that's pretty close to where he's been positioned. He heads north, jumping from roof to roof of the tightly-packed buildings. Soon he can see the wreckage and drops himself lower, eventually landing on the ground and running toward it.

And then he sees Peter.

"Holy shit," he says. " _Holy shit_."

The kid is pressed back against a long, jagged sheet of steel that has multiple medium-sized rectangular beams projecting from it, sharp and twisted where they had snapped off. Clint thinks that it was probably part of a support-ceiling at one point. The Spiderman mask is on the ground beside Peter; his head is resting back against the steel sheet, eyes tightly closed, one gloved fist pressed hard against his mouth. His other hand is by his side, also fisted. One of the broken beams protrudes from his chest just below his sternum, the silver stained and glinting with blood. On the ground about fifty yards away is one of the monsters they had been fighting, struggling to get free from its webby restraints. There's another twenty feet from the injured teenager.

" _Hawkeye, report!_ " Steve snaps over the comm, but Clint is too horrified to reply.

In front of him, Peter lets out a pained, shaky moan, his head coming forward and then banging back against the steel behind him. It snaps Clint out of his horror-induced stupor and he sprints across the grass to get to the injured teenager.

"Jesus, _fuck,_ " he breathes when he reaches him. It's worse up close; the metal beam is smeared with bits of torn muscle and tiny globs of fat. "What the _fuck_ , Parker? This in _no way_ constitutes an 'I'm good.'"

" _Hawkeye!_ " Steve growls, making Clint startle. The archer swallows.

"It's bad, Steve," he says. "It's really, really bad. He needs to get to medical, like, _yesterday_ , but there's no way I'm going to be able to move him. He's been— _skewered_."

Peter opens his eyes at Clint's voice, reaching out with both hands. His mangled comm piece drops from the one that had been at his side.

"Clint," Peter mumbles breathlessly. Clint swallows harshly again and moves forward to take one of Peter's hands in his own.

"Peter, you idiot," he says shakily. "Why didn't you fucking tell anyone?"

"S'not so bad," Peter rasps, sucking in a shallow breath. "Missed 'mport'nt stuff. Only pressure 'n lung—not p'nctured. No org'ns dam'ged. Jus' hurts: was fine, bu' web-sh't'r jos'led me."

It takes Clint a minute to decipher what Peter is trying to tell him through the slurred words, but eventually he gets it: it's not that bad, his lungs aren't punctured and no organs are damaged, he was fine until one of the green goblins decided to pay him a visit and the force from his web-shooter shifted him around.

"Peter, that's—this is in no way, shape, or form _fine_. Are you sure your organs aren't damaged?" Clint asks, apprehensive. Those are near-impossible odds.

Peter nods. "M'kay, Cl'nt, r'lly. Jus'—blood loss. Adren'line's gone."

The kid is beginning to slide down the steel, unable to hold himself up any longer. Clint catches him quickly under the arms before he can do any more damage.

"Whoa, there, Parker. None of that, now. You stay awake, you hear me?"

"Cl'nt..." Peter sighs before slumping forward bonelessly.

"Fuck— _fuck_." Clint grits his teeth as he attempts to hold Peter up. Kid may be gangly, but he's all lean, wiry muscle, and he's heavier than he looks.

" _Eye of Hawk, our foes have been vanquished_." Thor's voice booms lowly over the comm. " _The healers of SHIELD have been contacted. Is our friend Peter Parker gravely injured?_ "

"It looks pretty fucking grave to me," Tony says from behind Clint. There are two rapid blasts as Clint assumes Tony kills the still-struggling monsters. "Stupid kid didn't say _one goddamn word_."

Clint doesn't hear Tony's AI reply, but he must say something because then Tony snaps, "That statement was completely inadequate given the situation, Jarvis. 'A little banged up' is a few cuts and bruises, maybe a broken bone or two. Having a large, sharp piece of metal sticking out of your chest is not ' _a little banged up_.'"

Clint is inclined to agree.

Sam and Natasha arrive at the scene then, followed by Thor and Steve. Steve is at Peter's side in an instant, helping Clint hold him up and looking vaguely nauseous.

"How long before medical gets here?" Steve asks Natasha, his voice still commanding despite his appearance.

"ETA ten minutes," Natasha replies, "someone find Bruce."

"On it," Tony says, sliding his mask into place and taking off. It can't be more than two minutes before he returns, and a second later Bruce enters the clearing. He's shirtless and filthy, looking a little worse for wear, but the pants Peter and Tony had designed for him have held their shape almost perfectly. Clint finds himself impressed despite the situation.

"Keep his back straight," Bruce snaps as he nears. "How long has he been unconscious?"

"Not long. He told me that none of his organs are damaged," Clint relays, obediently straightening the unconscious teenager. He's grateful for Steve's help.

Bruce's brow furrows. "That's...almost impossible. Still, the only bleeding is from the site of the wound. There's a chance that the beam is keeping him from bleeding internally... No, there would still be bleeding. Maybe he's right." He's muttering now, inspecting Peter carefully. Clint has the feeling that he's no longer talking to them. "Even so, there's going to be so much muscle damage..." The older man shakes his head and passes a hand over his face. Then, louder, he says, "There's nothing we can do but wait and keep him from doing any more damage. If we try to move him he'll bleed out. How much longer before medical arrives?"

"Four minutes," Natasha says, stoic as always, but there's an undercurrent of concern that probably only Clint can detect.

"Why did Peter Parker not tell us of his injuries?" Thor asks. "Surely he must know that one of us would have come to his aid."

"You know what, buddy, I was just wondering that myself," Tony says tightly. "And I plan to find out just as soon as the kid wakes up."

"Bruce," Sam says, his voice low and worried. His hands are clenched by his sides. "What are the odds that Peter will come out of this and regain full ability?"

The doctor exhales sharply and looks up from his watch, which he had been using to monitor Peter's heart rate. "So far his heart rate and blood pressure are good. Great, actually—all things considered. With his accelerated healing the odds are much higher than they would be normally." He shakes his head. "Honestly, Sam, I don't know. The sheer amount of muscle damage is what concerns me, even if none of his organs are injured. But we still don't know the full extent of his healing abilities; if he's able to regenerate the torn muscles, there's a chance that with some physical therapy he'll be fine. If not..."

Clint doesn't want to think about what will happen 'if not.' He doesn't want to think about muscle damage and blood loss and possibly injured organs. He wants to be heading back to SHIELD for a debriefing, laughing with Sam and listening to Tony complaining and Peter making stupid jokes. He doesn't want to think about losing Peter.

"Godammit, Parker," he says. "Why didn't you just _say something_?"

If he's going to be completely honest, he'll admit that he doesn't know how Peter revealing his injuries would have helped much. One of them could have come to help him hold himself up earlier. Maybe he would have been able to avoid being jostled around trying to subdue another snot-monster. But they probably wouldn't have been able to call SHIELD any earlier, not with the amount of fighting that had been going on at the time. Still, he wishes desperately that Peter had spoken up, that they had _known_ about this.

"We need to teach him how to handle some sort of weaponry," Clint says lowly, breaking the uneasy silence that had settled over them. "I know that he's young, but it's time. He can't defend himself against stuff like this; he loses those web-thingies of his and he's helpless."

"You're right," Steve agrees, sounding defeated. "It was stupid not to have him trained earlier. He needs more protection."

Before anyone can reply, a SHIELD medical unit bursts into the clearing with stretchers and medical equipment and what looks like a laser-cutter. Clint relinquishes his hold on Peter to one of the medics, turning away as they have to slide him forward in order to cut the beam off of the steel sheet. There's blood on his hands and remnants of his earlier horror are making his stomach churn. He feels like he might be sick.

"Clint." Natasha's voice is low in his ear and her hand is gentle on his shoulder. "There's nothing more we can do here. Peter's strong; he'll pull through this and soon he'll be making fun of you like every other day."

Clint knows she's right. There's nothing else they can do. He gives her a half-smile and wipes his hands on his pants, watching as Peter is transported to Medical and then following the others back to SHIELD.

* * *

Peter wakes up to the slow, steady beeping of a heart monitor and the unmistakable sterile smell of SHIELD's medical wing. His mouth is drier than cotton and the muscles of his abdomen are sore like that one time he tried to bench-press Tony.

"Welcome back to the Land of the Living."

Peter's eyes flutter open at the sound of Bruce's voice. The older man is sitting in a chair beside his bed, book open in his lap. He looks tired: his eyes are shadowed and there's the hint of stubble on his jaw. He's smiling, though, genuinely. Peter smiles back. Then he coughs.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Bruce says, closing his book. He gently removes the oxygen mask from Peter's face and tilts his head up so that he can sip at a cup of water through a straw. It helps.

Bruce moves back to sit in the chair. Peter attempts to sit up.

When the white fades from his vision, Peter is greeted by the sight of Bruce hovering over him, brow furrowed in concern.

"Don't try to get up," Bruce says.

"Yeah, got it," Peter manages. His stomach feels like it's on fire.

"Tony is going to yell at you enough as it is without you hurting yourself any more," Bruce states mildly, once again sitting back into his chair. Peter grimaces.

"Is he mad, then?"

"You could say that," Bruce replies. He adjusts his glasses and fixes peter with a stern stare. "Peter, you could have been killed. You _should_ have been killed. The only reason you're going to be able to move again now is because your luck is miraculous and your healing powers turned out to be regenerative."

Peter blinks. That...is actually really freaking cool.

"Peter." The teenager looks back at Bruce and finds himself trapped in Bruce's serious gaze. The older man doesn't say anything for a minute.

"Peter, why didn't you tell us how badly you were hurt?" Bruce finally asks, his voice soft. "We might not have been able to do much, but one of us would have come anyway. You shouldn't have to handle something like that on your own."

Peter swallows and looks away. "You guys were busy," he mumbles.

Bruce sighs but doesn't say anything. After a minute Peter peeks at the older man to find him with his head in his hands; Peter doesn't know what to say, so he remains quiet. It isn't long until Bruce speaks.

"You scared Clint," he says.

Guilt washes through Peter. "I'm sorry." His voice is small. "Is everyone else all right?

"Fine," Bruce replies, lifting his head and settling back. He clasps his hands in his lap. "You were the only casualty. We've decided that it's time for you to learn how to handle a weapon."

Peter can't help the grin that spreads slowly across his face. "Really?" he asks.

"Really," Bruce replies with a small smile of his own. He sobers quickly. "But Peter, we need to know if you're injured, okay? We really, really don't want to lose you."

"Okay," Peter agrees, warmed by the thought that even though he's not home, he still has a family right here.

"So I was thinking throwing knives," Peter says excitedly before it can get too emotional. "They're super useful. I can use them for mid-range and close-up, too, which is awesome because—hey, do you think I'll be able to..."


End file.
